IGN managed to catch up with The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild director Hidemaro Fujibayashi to talk about the future of the incredible series. We already heard earlier today that work has already started on the next game in the series, so it will be interesting to see which ideas are brought forward and those that are scrapped.
“I can’t say at this point if it will be in sequels or in continuations, or what form it will take, but I definitely have lots of ideas and lots of motivation right now,” Fujibayashi told IGN.
“I think while we were working on both the main game and the DLC, it was a process of constantly getting lots of different, new ideas as we refined the game, and finding new things we wanted to do,” he added. “Even in situations like this, talking to people and finding out that people want to pet dogs gives me a lot of motivation, a lot of ideas for things we could put into the game.”
“What we learned from the DLC this time around is that it’s almost like raising the world or enhancing the world,” produer Eiji Aonuma added. “In the past, we always had to start from zero again, to completion. Usually we’d be thinking, ‘oh, I wish we could add this, we could do that.’ What we couldn’t do in that game, we would start fresh in a new game. But because we did a DLC, we realized it’s a great way to kind of just improve that world, and kind of enhance it, and kind of raise it like your own child.”
Nothing but excessive amounts of joy can describe how the world should feel over that work on a new Zelda has been initiated, and that the team have determination regarding what their goals with will be.
And as they will likely use the same engine in the upcoming game, I expect it not to take quite as long as last time.
I don’t see it being developed any faster than usual. And what makes you think it will be the same engine? Did they announce that or something?
I merely mean faster than Breath of the Wild.
It was alluded to in past interviews, but of course nothing is confirmed yet.
Another helping factor is that Nintendo do merge their handheld and home console development studios a while back, and they now seem to have a streamlined production pipeline.
I believe this will also help in the time effectiveness.
Yea your probably right. I was kind of hoping for a new top down Zelda on the Switch. Maybe anther link to the past type game except use a new map. ALBW was great but I hated that it used the same map..
It is not impossible that they put together a smaller game at some point.
I do not think they will abandon that whole style of gameplay, but it is possible that the main Zelda team is not the ones to make it…
Normally I would suggest that they would do that style once in a while, between main games, but with Zelda specifically I do not believe that they want to postpone a launch of a main line game, by say 2 years, just to make (comparatively) small game, as the main line is very important to them.
We will have to say, but even though I am not the most livid of top-down-Zelda fans, I hope you will not have to wait for too long for your wish to materialize.
||Obviously his lordship is going to include me as the ruler of Dark Lanayru Desert…||
Yeah like that’s going to ever fucking happen stupid.
https://youtu.be/KqSB4DFZqoM
Yo you there?
||I am now…||
How have you been ugly.
||Perfectly fine boy, how about you?…||
Eh ive seen fucking rays of sunshine in my life but im still fucking shit up. I added you on the switch by the way
||Life is a useless thing, however, once something special comes your way, be sure to keep it as I know humans need it…||
||Good, I’ll see you in thevarena soon enough then…||
Great to know they’re excited to move forward, but with a game that well received, can you blame them to ride their success?
I hope they’ll fix some of the issues from Breath of the Wild. Item management seriously needs to be revisited, for example. Maybe a possibility to repair weapons ( even though I’m not against weapon durability, there’s just too many people whining about it…), more different enemy designs and maybe the dungeons could be more within the idea of traditional dungeons?
Well the Guardians are considered “dungeons” themselves but you can interact with them as one big puzzle. Although, their design aesthetics should differ to give it more visual variety. Also, they added one more Guardian/Shrines through DLC so you’ll have more dungeons experience to boot. More enemy variety would be nice and weapon repair shop/system is a must to shut some of those casual twats up because there’s plenty of weapons to go around and the purpose of weapons breaking is for strategic purposes to make the players think tactically before rushing in to attack although they can still do that if they want. The game just needs more enemies/wildlife and a repair shop or two (like a blacksmith) to make it more friendly and engaging for gamers who still think it’s lacking which is not.
Yeah. I’m ok with weapons being broken. Besides, they just having a hard time on finding another weapon they used.
You know weapon durability didn’t bother me on my first playthrough. (200+hours) But now, if I go back and play the game weapons breaking all the time really bothers me… Like REALLY bugs the shit out of me… It’s strange I don’t know why the 180 but it’s just how I feel now.
You were in the honeymoon phase for your first play through. Once that phase ended, you started seeing some things differently.
Not to mention some of us never see the issues with something til our subsequent plays or watches.
They had better NOT be OP enemies or weapon durability.
Get. Rid. Of. It.
I’m fine with OP enemies in the right doses. Weapon durability could also be fine if it’s more like broken in 300 swings rather than broken in 10 swings.
Then what’s the point of the Master Sword and rare Amiibo weapons if everything just breaks easily.
Also, what ISN’T perishable in this game, aside from Link’s “E for Everyone” boxers? What can’t the game take away from you? Is it possible to be left completely defenseless, since 90% of your inventory is now perishable?
Me too. I’m ok with it as well. I love battling OP enemies and they are good to challenge with. Besides some of the biggest enemies can be strong. It depends what kind of weapons they have.
“Then what’s the point of the Master Sword and rare Amiibo weapons if everything just breaks easily.”
The Master Sword doesn’t have durability, and you’re changing my argument for me. I specifically set the bar to a place where the weapon does not break easily. 300 swings is a *LOT* of zelda content with a single weapon.
“Also, what ISN’T perishable in this game, aside from Link’s “E for Everyone” boxers? What can’t the game take away from you? Is it possible to be left completely defenseless, since 90% of your inventory is now perishable?”
There are a lot of things that aren’t perishable, so this begs the question of how familiar you are with the game. Let’s assume everything is perishable though. So what? Nothing’s indestructible in real life either. I’m not arguing for 3 hit guardian axes. I think that was silly and immersion breaking. I’m just saying lots of games employ durability systems that are almost invisible they’re so lenient. There’s no reason to think Nintendo can’t do it when Blizzard can.
I know those Lyons bastards are near impossible but it’s so much more rewarding when you beat them. Weapon durability, I still don’t see why people are bitching it about it. It’s as realistic as it can get. Trying using the same tool/weapon for so long without patching/fixing it and without it withering away. You can’t and I know you’re gonna use the “it’s just a video game” excuse. Yeah, it is a video game and it’s up to the developers to decide how to design/play it. If you don’t like it, fine. Play something else but if you wanna criticize something, THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU’RE COMPLAINING because it’s obvious whiners are gonna ignore or overlook a few distinctive points that they misunderstood the overall concept.
I don’t play games for realism. Games are supposed to help us get away from reality and actually have fun.
Also, the Zelda series has been thriving for years without weapon durability.
I just want a new Zelda game without all the shit that people apparently love in BotW. Since BotW broke away from the traditional Zelda formula, why don’t the next game break away from the traditional BotW formula, or before it becomes that.
If there was another 3D Zelda game alongside this one, I’d gladly ignore this one and go play that.
Seriously, because of fucking breakable weapons that you can easily repair or find more…MUCH MORE in games like this? Fuck me the over privileged cunts are unbearably picky these days.
No need to be an ass.
Oh I’m sorry Mr. “BotW is trash for having realism in weaponry”. I didn’t know it’s too much to ask for a challenge and reason for strategy. If you want an easy game to play, try Tellitubbies on PC kindergarten games.
You mean this series of horror games for PC & such?
Don’t know if it’s exists but knowing there were a ton of educational games on PCs for kids back then, I assumed that. lol
If you’re going to acting like a fucking asshole, go and play your precious BotW, instead of picking on someone who has a different opinion about this game.
I don’t need you or your crap. Now kindly fuck off.
*holds a mirror*
*smashes mirror*
Remove weapon durability and you break half the gameplay. It’s one of the driving forces for exploration and the game is at its best when you have nothing and need to improvise (like the first hours as well as a certain island quest). If anything, the game gives you too many weapons to horde and they should make powerful items MORE scarce. There’s also no OP enemies, since you have complete freedom to leave and return with more hearts and better gear, and enemies can always be defeated with basic gear (you don’t NEED a special weapon, they just help). The fear of powerful enemies is also thrilling: running from lasers, slipping past spiders that will run you down and kill you, sneaking up on a sleeping giant to steal an item from his necklace, raiding the castle before you have business being there. Indeed, my main complaint about the game was how EASY it was, so maybe they need to release the game with not just a hard mode, but an easy mode too. I know my mother-in-law is obsessed with Zelda and this game in particular, but she sometimes needs someone to help on a fight.
Really, it was their not being afraid to break the mold and create new, interesting gameplay elements that resulted in the reviews it received. They have no incentive to get rid of those things, when they’ve been told in sales and review scores that they succeeded.
It’s good to fight them.
But it alienated so many longtime fans. If these divisive features are hear to stay for all future titles, then the Zelda series is DEAD, as in, I will never play another The Legend of Zelda game released by Nintendo ever again.
Unfortunately, that sort of data is hard to track. Developers can look at feedback on message boards, but you can never get a real feel for whether or not that’s indicative of the community as a whole or a vocal minority. So they rely more on critical reception, sales, and sometimes controlled test groups. It’s always a shame when a series moves in a direction you don’t enjoy, and even more frustrating when you see others feeling differently. It’s happened to favorites series of my own too.
Personally, the Zelda series was starting to disappoint me. Things had peaked at Majora’s, I didn’t appreciate Windwaker enough at the time, I can’t tell you much about what happens in Twilight, and Skyward Sword was the first that I didn’t finish and can say I genuinely didn’t like. If there was a return to form, then I may not buy it. And it’s hard to say which of our opinion’s represent the majority. That’s why they have to either look at real data or the better option is to just go with what the team is interested in and enjoys. A dev team churning out something they’re not passionate about, just because the fan base/data demands it, can make a game that nobody enjoys.
Skyward Sword doesn’t seem to fall in that category, neither does Twilight Princess, which had gritty unappealing aesthetics.
What I want to know is how many people were THAT salty over Skyward Sword that they demanded all the forces changes we now see current, such as overpowered enemies (that force you to go MGS on them), breakable/disposable/gone forever weapons, ragdoll physics, Evertide Island, and arbitrary deaths by lightning strikes (long before BotW was ever in development)?
There’s a difference between changing the tone and nature, and getting rid of traditional mechanics to the point where the difficulty is much harder for no reason, and you suffer with frequent deaths because of it.
This is a game that can take way every last weapon (and possibly every clothing/armor) or recovery item you have on you, leaving you with nothing but the boxers you started with and zero means of defense.
So just to be clear, I wasn’t salty over Skyward Sword. I just didn’t like it. I didn’t care for a lot of design decisions and it’s been too long since I messed with it to really give a fair reason why. I did enjoy much of the audio/visual and the unique sky setting. Everything under the clouds was disappointing for me.
Beyond that, everything that you listed, from the challenging enemies that force you to approach in a different way or return with better gear (the only real challenge I faced in the game were the Lyonels, and all you really had to do was shoot them in the face to stun and jump on their back a few times), disposable gear which was the very engine that drove the need to explore, Evertide Island, my single favorite quest in the game, the weather, with lightning making you change up your gear or letting you throw metal to time awesome lightning attacks (they had an audio cue, so I think I only got hit once?), rain interrupting your climbing and forcing you to actually find shelter to make a fire and rest… All those things contributed to my enjoyment of the game in meaningful ways.
There’s tons that I miss from the series. I’d like some original dungeon design mixed in. I loved how silence was used but miss the memorable soundtrack and using instruments. I miss learning schedules in Majora’s Mask. And I appreciate that Zelda is a game for all skill levels, and perhaps there should be more difficulty selections. I totally get where you’re coming from and can appreciate being unhappy with dramatic changes in your favorite series. But your being happy with the next game may result in my being unhappy with it. There’s no right or wrong.
Also, how do you lose armor in the game? I never had that happen.
So you keep armor and every costume you unlock? What about those aura abilities (like bombs and Magnesis)? Can those be used to attack enemies, when you completely run out of weapons to use?
Yes! You never lose armor and their upgrades are permanent. Weapons, bows, and shields can break, but throwing weapons is satisfying and if they break on an enemy it does a ton of extra damage. If you run out of weapons, you can use bombs, drop things with magnesis, launch things with stasis, etc. But you really only risk running out of weapons in early game, and a stick on the ground works just fine early game. In most cases you just need to figure out how to take out one guy who’s carrying a weapon and then you snag that and beat his friends with it, and you’ve got yourself a whole campful of weapons. Or wait until the camp’s asleep and steal a weapon, then start murdering them. Or kill a skeleton, pick up his arm, and beat the rest with it. Out of arrows but have a bow? Get an archer’s attention and fire his arrows back at him. There’s a handful of major weapons in the game that can be rebuilt with a mining resource, and the Master Sword never breaks, it just needs 10 minutes to recharge. Is an enemy too tough? See what happens when you drop a metal shield and lure him near it in a thunderstorm. Or when a giant rips up a tree to beat you and you catch the tree on fire. Go make potion/food that boosts your defense or attack. There’s definitely a push to find more powerful weapons and manage your resources well, but you’ll never be out of options. Also, recovery items are more plentiful than hearts once were, they’re just apples, mushrooms, and meat now.
“But it alienated so many longtime fans. If these divisive features are hear to stay for all future titles, then the Zelda series is DEAD, as in, I will never play another The Legend of Zelda game released by Nintendo ever again.”
Ok. goodbye. The game brought in 10 fans for every 1 who’s upset. Honestly, as a huge fan of classic Zelda, and I mean pre N64 Zelda is what I call classic Zelda, BoTW is a return to form after nearly 20 years of lazy OoT clones.
“There’s a difference between changing the tone and nature, and getting rid of traditional mechanics to the point where the difficulty is much harder for no reason, and you suffer with frequent deaths because of it.”
BoTW is not a hard game. I only play casually, currently in Master Mode, and after dying a handful of times on the great plateau, the game is too easy again just like it was in normal mode. You’re just not used to it because the Aonuma Zelda games had nearly removed action from the series completely.
“This is a game that can take way every last weapon (and possibly every clothing/armor) or recovery item you have on you, leaving you with nothing but the boxers you started with and zero means of defense.”
What enemy is doing this to you? You keep listing this scenario as though it’s even a remote possibility. After you clear your first Divine Beast you get a major power that nobody can take away from you. Clear the Gerudo Desert first and you can faceroll just about every enemy in the game, Ganon included.
I wonder it they ever try the futuristic Zelda setting, like they originally meant while creating the series. As much as I don’t like crazy series switches, I’d love to see a dystopian universe styled Zelda, like some Final Fantasy games.
There’d be a lot of backlash over a genre change. It could also step on the toes of Metroid in terms of where the game lies in Nintendo branding.
Except it happened when Metroid Prime came to be. But that soon fade away and very quickly when they realize that only the perspective changed, not the formula so it’s still the same game/product that they like, just with a twist.
You are forgetting how Nintendo shut down a new F-Zero because of Mario Kart 8 on Wii U for being in the same genre: racing. Then there is the fact they stripped nearly everything that made Paper Mario an RPG so it wouldn’t “interfere” with the Mario & Luigi series which is also an RPG. (A shame the game series that came first is getting gutted because of a series that came after it.) Nintendo really should learn there is such a thing as sub-genres. Now maybe they changed their mindset on that after the backlash for the latest Paper Mario entries & the lack of an F-Zero. Or maybe they haven’t. I won’t hold my breathe, though.
Well no shit that MK somehow “replaced” F-Zero even though it was still cherished by fans and now the demand is growing larger. I would love a blazing fast racing genre to come back through F-Zero. As for Paper Mario, just make a fucking proper and hilarious follow up from Thousand-Year Door with it’s gameplay formula intact. It’s not hard to pull off from Nintendo’s caliber. Wii/U era was their period of sheer idiocy and ignorance among casual twats who moved on to even bigger garbage NOT gaming genre: Mobile phones.
I hope those ideas include more traditional-styled dungeons, a better story, and actual music in the overworld.
Don’t forget more enemies in dungeons, more enemy variety instead of palette swaps (I could chalk that up to the fact BotW is one giant homage to the original Legend of Zelda which made full use of palette swaps as that was the norm back then because of limited power or whatever), & an instrument that lets us summon our horse to us using powerful teleportation magic instead of a saddle having that ability when people might not like the aesthetic/appearance of said saddle.
So not that I don’t love Zelda music, but BotW did some amazing things with silence and ambient sounds.
I’d rather have the music. And if I really want to hear those sounds, I should have an option in settings that lets me turn the music down. This is the one thing that annoys me most about most of Nintendo’s games: no settings for sound effects, music, & voices. :/ (Minus the master volume bullshit! I don’t want my changes to the volume of the music, sound effects, & voices to be overwritten because of that bullshit. It ruins the immersion when the music suddenly gets louder than the sound effects & voices when I specifically made sure the music won’t be louder than them. Whoever created the master volume setting was a giant asshole troll.)
I think the game maybe needed more music punctuating the silence. But a lot of that silence in the overworld was literally the breath of the wild and I loved it. The absence of music is highlighted by the fact that it’s our first 3D Zelda without a musical instrument/conducting. It’s a very intentional design for this game that created a very specific effect. Previous Zeldas have always used music to define locations, and the songs were very memorable, so this was a huge change for the series. I’m not saying it should be like that for the next game, but I’d defend the choice for this game anyways.
As long as this is a one time thing & the next Zelda game finally introduces audio settings for those that might want to hear music over silence or silence over music can do just that without the other side of the spectrum being left out, I’ll be fine with BotW doing this.
I can’t wait see what are they going to do next for the next game. They said it’s gonna be like breath of the wild.
I’d love it if one of those ideas is a trilogy featuring the same Link & Zelda in the two sequels. BotW sets up the sequel that involves the reconstruction of Hyrule which sets up the third game in the trilogy where you have to protect the new towns & temples from malice (corruption) as Calamity Ganon resurfaces.
Oh & the third game should definitely feature a much older, more rugged Link for the first time in the franchise’s history. Maybe even have Zelda travel WITH Link as either an AI controlled partner or a second player controlled partner with her own style of gameplay different from Link. Screw it! Do something drastic & have Link and Zelda as a married couple as it will give a story reason as to why they are traveling together! It would continue what BotW started: breaking away from series’ conventions. (Not to mention a game where you actually control Zelda from Nintendo themselves could help erase the stain that is Phillip CDi’s Zelda’s Adventure. Yuck!)
“But because we did a DLC, we realized it’s a great way to kind of just improve that world, and kind of enhance it, and kind of raise it like your own child.””
DLC confirmed for sequel. I’m not a fan of it, but it seems now even for Nintendo this is the norm.
I think I can safely say BOTW is where I’ll close out my Zelda following and I have no regrets after decades of following it.
I still think there was a serious lack of themed dungeons in BoTW. They need to bring those back in some fashion. Mini bosses and keys and dungeon items… That’s shouldn’t just go away.
Just don’t make it bigger and have dungeons. That’s all I ask. If they really want to stick to the openworld formula, please make to branches of the franchise. One ever wandering openworld, and one more traditional. I don’t think anyone would say no to two games rather than just one :P
Things I want to see in the next game;
1. A mix of dungeons, traditional, shrine based and or divine beast type. These dungeons can either offer puzzles or boss battles. Or perhaps both, a puzzle section leading to a mini boss or big boss.
2. A mix of enemy types, it got boring fighting the same enemies over and over again. Some variety, the Zelda lore has so many enemy types, would love to see more. How about a village run down by redeads.
3. The ability to move or re-arrange your items around in your item screen. Or they could build in a system that automatically organizes your weapon types and clothing sets accordingly. It got annoying having to look around for clothing sets that get spread out across several item screens.
4. Link needs to be able to throw his fists and kick ass when not having weapons. It a Bokoblin can still kick Link’s ass when it loses it’s weapons…. so should Link.
5. No punitive ammo depletion, when you buy out all the available weapons from merchants, restocking takes literally days or depends on how low you run out of your own stock. Its sucks, needs to be improved.
6. I keep hearing owls, monkeys and yet where the heck are they? Animal variety needs to be improved. I definitely want to see spiders, cats, mice and OWLS!
7. Where are the Skulltulas and Poes? We need more rewarding elements for $$$. I could see a series of missions where people have abandoned some villages or towns that have become infested with Poes and Skulltulas. Link is then tasked to go and remove the problem. Haunted towns perhaps similar to the dark portions of BOTW, could be spooky with redeads of former villagers along with ghostly poes to fight or to score some Skulltulas that can give you upgrades to some abilities.
8. I enjoyed some of the sidequests, I want better ones in the next game. Missing persons, loved ones missing. Recovering beloved relics in an abandoned or haunted town or village.
10. Playable Zelda missions. I’m not talking about Zelda going to dungeons… I’m thinking that there could be sections of the game where Zelda is actively working to bring down Ganon or some other new nemesis. She isn’t just a damsel even though she may be imprisoned, she could be doing something like on some otherworldly plane actively helping link by solving magic puzzles to give Link on his earthly plane tools or access to maps to secret dungeons with the best gear and weapons or upgrades to his stamina or hearts.
11. A new villain, perhaps Zant or Majora… or the even the effin Aliens from MM.
12. I want to see large towns and villages. Not just ruins but ruins are nice. I want some caves to explore with monsters in them.
13. Weapons need to be stronger or at least last longer. This means that the Master Sword better be THE Master Sword, not the gimped one we got in this game. It wasn’t the Master Sword, it was the “not quite there Sword”.
I thoroughly enjoyed BOTW, its a great game and I love the open world aspect and hope that they keep with that for the more longer developed games. If they want a quick release… do one of the 2D or half 3D/2D Zeldas to keep fans happy in the interim. I wouldn’t mind seeing another sequel to A Link to The Past.
Some of the things you want are definitely very Witcher 3-esque which is why they sadly, most likely WON’T happen. Aonuma relegated that game to nothing more than sex & violence, so they had a chance to use the things you mentioned before for BotW but didn’t. (Hopefully I’m proven wrong & they felt including some of the best things about Witcher 3 would have been too much of a change from traditional Zelda way too soon & want to add these changes in small doses for later games.)
I never mentioned anything about sex or gore. I was talking about things that made sense in the context of BOTW. The things that I mentioned are logically sound to the world that was created in this game. They can be done and likely will be done in the next one.
It’s going to be a long wait before we even see a hint of what the next direction is going to be but I hope that we see some interim releases… like a 2D/3D Zelda or HD remake not a remaster. Additionally, it sucks that their won’t be DLC to continue the BOTW experience but oh well. :)
And I agree with what you said about the Master Sword. There definitely should have been a way to get The True Master Sword as the Master Sword in BotW has clearly lost it’s power over the millenia since it needed time to recharge to be used again.
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